


The Death of a Prince

by eurosthewanderer



Series: So I watched the Spanish Princess and lost my mind [1]
Category: The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory, The Spanish Princess (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 06:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20466263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurosthewanderer/pseuds/eurosthewanderer





	The Death of a Prince

The red brick work was completely draped in black when the liter carrying Anne, her mother and her older sister arrived in the courtyard. Mother was fussing over Mary's wild blond curls that would never stay flat. At fourteen years old, Anne liked to braid her black, straight, long hair into two braids that she could pin together into a bun. Anne hopped out from behind the sheet that protected the three Boleyn women from the gaze of the summer sun, she gasped seeing the funeral drapery through the mass of bodies streaming about her. She smoothed her palms down the front of her skirts, eyes searching out the supposedly ornate stonework covered by the black drapery. But she was unsuccessful, for other than the very top of the doorway to the hall there was not a speck of white to be seen anywhere.

"Annie!" Mother shouted from the litter. "You need to wait!"

Anne-_Nan-_waited, sweating in her heavy English styled black dress in the cobble stone courtyard. Her black eyes, slitted into a squint, finally, on a small white rose peeking out from behind one sheet. The black curtain swished open with the rustling sound of an oversized skirt as Anne's mother dragged her swollen body out of the liter. Mary sprung out after her, hair still flying this way and that from underneath her hood.

* * *

The chapel was empty when Anne ducked between it's broad doors or so she thought. It's pews were unoccupied and no hymn's were being sung, giving the place of worship a hollow, tomblike feeling. She had been in a crypt before, in Paris, when she was eight years old and following a thirteen year old Mary with a young page. The rumbling clouds that covered the sky outside made the normally vibrant colors of the stained glass windows dull and sad. Anne imagined that perhaps the very Earth making up England itself had decided to mourn for the death of it's prince.

Arthur, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester would be laid to rest in Westminster the next morning. Anne hoped that the clouds had cried their fill by then. It was unfair for Arthur's poor mother to have her tears washed off by the rain. She had seen the Queen twice since she'd arrived at court, huddled next to her husband, rapped in a black shawl. The women, looked like steel armor, straining under the weight of some great pressure.

Anne heard her heels clack loudly on the marble floor, holding her own shawl tight around her shoulders. Someone had placed a vase of red and white roses atop of the black coffin that contained the Prince's embalmed body. Behind that coffin were rows upon rows of melting candles. There were several that had gone out. Anne thought she ought to relight then before she said her Hail Mary's. It would be a simple kindness after all, that might aide in the lord finding it in his heart to forgive her her lusts.

_Henry Percy is unbearably handsome_, Mary had teased her when she'd crept from their quarters to the chapel, _and the heir to Northumberland? What was the sin in simply kissing him? It's not as if you took liberties with his person, did you Annie? _

Mary had only started to call her that awful nickname when they had gone home to Mother, who seemed to still think of her daughters as the six and eleven year olds who had left her for France. Anne idly wondered what she would do if Anne were to tell her that Mary's maidenhead had been broken in the French King's bed over two years ago now. But that resentfulness was also a sin. Anne thought she would have to count seventy five Hail Mary's now.

She walked up to the coffin and felt herself involuntary shiver as if her body was rioting at the very suggestion of coming so close to death itself. Anne's steps faltered minutely but she walked on. Her Lady Margaret had told her once that omega's were the bringers of all life and in that, there was an inherent bravery. Anne wryly wondered if it also came with an inherent fear of the dead.

Anne came to stand in front of the candles with her skin prickling under the wave of heat generated by the little flames. There were match sticks scattered beneath the metal frame of the candle holder. Anne bent and picked one of the less singed ones up off the floor when every muscle within her body turned to liquid nearly sending her tumbling into the candles. _Someone was watching her_, Anne realized when she was bent double before the alter, her shaking fingers still holding the little bit of wood. Slowly, terrified, Anne looked over her shoulder.

Sitting at the head of the coffin, arms crossed and resting on his raised knee was a boy who couldn't have been a year or two older than Anne by his face. Anne blinked, more startled than scared while the young man watched her, his green eyes peering between his arms and his mop of red hair. Those eyes were red rimmed and wet as if he had only stopped crying when Anne walked into the church. He looked familiar. Anne had probably seen him in some hallway of the palace over the past three days. But his clothes, while well made, held no obvious sign of rank or position within the court.

"Monsignor," Anne said in lieu of a more lofty greeting. "Pardonne moi, I did not see you there."

The French slid off her tongue like a warm glassful of milk or a mouthful of soup or anything else that would remind an Englishman of home. She wondered, as the boy lifted his head, if she could be considered English anymore.

"Why are you here?" The red-haired boy croaked out, voice raw like a woman after the birth of her baby. "Who are you?"

"I come to pray." Anne said simply, forcing her aching legs to straighten as she stood up.

"For my brother?" The boy-_the Duke of York_-asked her, puffy eyes narrowed so that Anne could barely make out their green color.

It was a grievous in to lie, Anne knew that, even though she did it quite often. Louis le Roi had once teased Mary that lying to a king was an even more grievous sin when he had come upon Anne and her sister in a hallway. She would recon lying to a prince in a chapel was worse than that but more importantly, she already had too many sins to pay penance for.

"No, your highness." Anne said. She wanted to turn her back to the prince to light those candles but she was unable to pull her eyes away from him. Her nerves were still hysterical with the shock of his sudden presence.

"You seem to be the only one." Prince Henry-_yes, that was right_-Duke of York, Warden of the Scottish marshes, Lieutenant of Ireland said. Anne felt a telltale hum in her throat that she knew would morph into a purr if she opened her mouth so she bit her tongue.

"Well, that's not true," He commented more to himself than to Anne. "My grandmother prays that Cata will be found to be with child. My father prays for the opposite so he can either wed her to me or bed rid of her _and for the future of his country of course. _My mother told me she's praying for me."

Prince Harry let out a humorless laugh and shook his fluffy red hair.

"I think my sister is praying for my death because if I die she becomes heir and can't go to Scotland." He continued. "Maybe that's what my grandmother prays for as well, now I can't be shipped off to a seminary."

"Why would you think they could possibly want you dead?" Anne asked, voice unnaturally squeaky. The Prince laughed again but this time there was a touch of hysteria that Anne felt in the painful pounding of her own heart.

"My grandmother claimed I was destined for something great but my mother claimed that was a _priest_." Henry spat out the final word out like it was a bone in his mouthful of fish. 

"That's ridiculous." Anne agreed automatically, voice still squeaky. "They would've..."

"I know!" The Prince agreed. "There are a million priests scattered across Europe. It is know honor to be dragged into that."

_Meant for you to be Pope. _

Anne bit her tongue, looking down at the raging boy sitting in front of his brother's dead body. The Prince's face was almost as red as his hair and twisted into the distorted, waxy visage of an old man or some kind of demon.

"Now I'm to be a king." Anne flinched as the word flew from his lips with even more venom than he had given priest. The Prince fell silent, green eyes glued onto her face as he let out a choked sob.

"I'm sorry," Henry said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You're not." The lie slipped off her tongue like the finest wine, splashing into the momentarily silent holy air. Henry looked at her with wide green eyes before he snuffled and began to weep again. He folded his hands over his face so that only the tip of his nose and his his red bangs were visible.

"Have you prayed for your brother?" Anne asked sharply, heart calming in her chest as she inched toward him and knelt down. She extended her hand toward him, palm upward. This she knew how to do, wooing little sharp clawed kittens into her lap was all but second nature to her at this point.

"Yes," Henry choked out, moving one hand downward while the other pawed at his red eyes. "Of course I did."

"That would mean a lot to your brother wouldn't it?" Anne asked slowly, speaking as if she would to a small child. "To know that you loved him enough to tend to his immortal soul?"

"He got everything." Henry spat. "Catalina, mother, father. Everyone always payed attention to him, especially when he was sick. And I hated him for it. I told him I wanted him to die when I six and then I almost said it was drunk on his wedding night with Catalina."

_Cata? Catalina, _Anne racked her brains, trying to remember where she recognized that name. _It was Spanish for Catherine-Catalina de Aragona, _Catherine of Aragon. 

She inched closer to the prince in front go her, turning her palm to place it just above his elbow. Henry tensed at the contacted Anne felt herself jump at the feeling of hard muscle beneath her palm. Anne looked up at Henry's previously covered face only to find his wet, dark green eyes staring unblinkingly into her own. Cautiously, Anne stroked her hand up and down his upper arm as she spoke.

"I had a twin." Anne told him. "His name was Edward and even though he came into the world after me he was my parent's first born son so, of course, he was the favored child. Even Mary, my elder sister, would play with him before me. He died when we were six and I was happy. Do you know why? Because now I could sit on my mama's lap. It took me another two before I realized how sinful that happiness was."

Henry swayed into her touch, choked sobs clawing their way out of his throat. Anne walked on her knees, pain shooting through her knee caps, over to sit next to Henry with her hand still on his arm. Anne fell back onto her buttocks, feet kicking out from beneath her skirts so that the black toes of her shoes were visible.

"I am sorry for your loss." Henry told her, voice choked but less shaky than it had been a moment before.

"As I am sorry for yours, your grace." Anne responded. "And twice as such for your pain is still fresh."

Henry blinked at her, let out a little choked sound and suddenly swung his arm around her shoulders, dragging her to his chest. The young prince was wearing a black doublet over his shirt but after a moment of mind numbing panic Anne felt the heat of his chest against her cheek. Henry put his nose into her hair and began to sob. Proper sobs, big gulping things that filled and emptied his lungs. 


End file.
